Tang Ye had already taken off her clothes and gone to bed, hugging her pillow and watching "Tokyo Love Story". Perhaps only with an experience like hers would she cherish the innocence on TV. As she was watching the show intently, she received a call from Wen Liang. The call was not from a mobile phone, but from a public phone. It was rare for him to find the telephone booths on the street that were still open so late.
After a few simple words, Tang Ye got up, washed up, came out of the bathroom, walked to the living room, opened the window to feel the temperature outside, and found a purple pure wool windbreaker from the closet. In October, Guanshan already had a bit of early autumn coolness. After driving for more than half an hour, they arrived at a clean but deep alley in Sanqiu District, parked the car next to the five-pointed maple tree on the roadside, and Tang Ye looked around, with her hands in the pockets of the windbreaker. The heels of her deerskin Martin boots made a tapping sound on the ground. Occasionally, a gust of wind blew, and a few lavender maple leaves fluttered and fell from her back, freezing the picture in the fluttering of the corners of her clothes.
Taking advantage of the dim street lights in the alley, Tang Ye came to a small iron door, picked up the tiger-head ring on the door and knocked five times, three times fast and two times slow. The door opened silently from the inside, waiting for Tang Ye to slip in. Then it closed silently again.
It was the same secret room where they met last time. The wall lamps on the walls were bright. Wen Liang was kneeling beside the coffee table, holding a brush in his right hand and writing something on the rice paper. When he heard the door open, he smiled and said without looking up, "It's so late. Am I disturbing your rest?"
The temperature in the room was just right. Tang Ye took off her windbreaker and hung it on the hanger at the door, revealing the light white waist-hugging miniskirt underneath, showing off her slender and curvy figure.
"No, I'm watching TV at home. It's still early for bedtime!"
Wen Liang seemed to have finished the work in his hands. He looked at it with satisfaction, waved to Tang Ye and said, "Come and see how these words are written."
Tang Ye walked slowly to him, looked down curiously, and saw eight words written on the paper: The Way of the Sage, One Dragon and One Snake. She had been an editor and reporter for the provincial newspaper for many years, and calligraphy was her basic skill. She could see that Wen Liang's handwriting was good, but although the shape and quality were good, the spirit was a little lacking, and it was not a first-class good handwriting. She immediately smiled and said, "A dot out of place is like a beauty's eye, and a stroke out of place is like a warrior's broken arm!"
This sentence means that if there is a mistake in writing a word, it is like a beauty with a damaged eye, and if there is a mistake in writing a horizontal stroke, it is like a warrior with a broken arm. Wen Liang laughed and said, "Although I have never heard that, I can guess that it is insulting me! You scholars should criticize and correct me, but you have to say it in such a flowery way. How can a rough man like me understand?"
Tang Ye pretended to be angry and said, "Boss, you are being unreasonable. You asked me a question and I answered truthfully. Can it be that I cannot listen to unpleasant words and can only flatter you?"
Wen Liang was not a rough man. Most people who practice calligraphy have read Wang Xizhi's "On the Strokes of the Brush". Whether the author of this famous book is Wang Xizhi is still controversial, but it is generally believed that it is Wang's school of calligraphy. This sentence comes from Chapter 12 of "On the Strokes of the Brush". Wen Liang understood it immediately. Seeing that Tang Ye was joking with him for the first time, he felt very amused. He handed over the brush and exchanged it for a piece of rice paper, saying: "You are just bragging. If you don't show your real skills, I will deduct your salary!"
Deducting wages is the only way to deal with Chang Cheng. Wen Liang is lazy as a boss and wants to have a unique way to make money. But Tang Ye doesn't buy it. He rolled his eyes at him and said, "Have you ever paid me?"
Wen Liang thought about it and realized it was true. He said awkwardly, "This is not important. Come on, you are so arrogant, you must be really capable. Write a few words for me to review!"
Tang Ye took the brush, glanced at it calmly, and praised: "The Shanlian Lake brush from Dai Yuexuan in the capital does not fall apart when you pick it up, and it does not become soft when you lay it down, but it is very valuable!"
Wen Liang really didn't understand this. He was slightly stunned, pointed to the inkstone next to him, and said, "Expert, where is this from?"
"This... should be a Tao inkstone. It has a silky texture and a beautiful color. What's especially valuable is that it retains heat very well, so it's very popular in the north!"
Wen Liang then realized that he had previously asked Cai Lian to get a set of pens, ink, paper and inkstone, but Cai Lian actually got them all of top-quality stuff. It was really difficult for him to do it so late and in such a short time.
Cai Lian is the new person in charge of this tea house. Actually, he is not a complete newcomer, because he has been stationed in Guanshan with Ye Zhiwei since the establishment of the tea house. During this period, Ye Zhiwei had to take care of Suhai, and almost all trivial matters fell on his head. When the tea house opened, before Ye Zhiwei returned to Suhai, he recommended Cai Lian to Wen Liang, so he naturally became the general manager of the tea house, and also Wen Liang's spy and intelligence chief in Guanshan.
For such a person, showing such cleverness is actually part of his job!
"This is a good feeling, it's all good stuff. When you write ugly words later, you can't complain about the tools!"
"Stingy man!" Tang Ye muttered, rolled up his sleeves, his jade-white wrists sparkled with crystal light, and he wrote the same eight words as smoothly as running water, saying as he wrote: "Flat is horizontal, straight is vertical, even is space, dense is boundary, sharp is end, and force is body!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he stopped writing. Wen Liang's handwriting was strong and exuded a masculine beauty, while Tang Ye's handwriting was simple and delicate, with a sense of gentleness. But as she had just recited the Twelve Meanings of Zhong Yao's Calligraphy, the ending of Wen Liang's handwriting was blunt and a little dragged, and was indeed slightly inferior!
“Good handwriting!”
Wen Liang admired it for a while, put the rice paper aside and waited for the ink to dry, and said: "How about giving me this calligraphy? Frame it tomorrow and hang it in this room, so that it can add some taste to my painting."
This is a place where you can meet friends and entertain guests. If you really hang it up, won't other people be able to see the calligraphy you wrote? Although it won't be signed, and people who are not related to it won't know that it was written by you, Tang Ye still feels a little shy. This feeling is a rare experience for her. She gestures to snatch it and says, "No, I'll tear it up now."
"No!" Wen Liang crossed his arms, blocking her way, and shouted, "I'll give you money, isn't that enough?"
Tang Ye was angry and amused when he saw Wen Liang was playing rogue, and said, "Okay, you name the price!"
Wen Liang asked tentatively: "50 cents?"
Tang Ye frowned, her pretty eyes froze into ice, Wen Liang quickly stretched out five fingers and said, "Five hundred thousand!"
Five hundred thousand
How many works of contemporary calligraphy masters can be bought with this price? Tang Ye teased him deliberately and said with a smile: "Okay, deal, give me the money!"
Wen Liang licked his face and said, "I'll owe it to you first and pay you back when I have money."
Tang Ye stared at him, as if she wanted to see how thick his face was. Wen Liang quickly put on an innocent and cute expression, which made her burst out laughing, like flowers blooming on the earth.
Since the two of them met, they have been testing each other and opening their hearts to each other. They usually talk about work, and rarely chat casually. He is considerate of Tang Ye's past and is very careful about the degree and scale of his words. If she was not in a good mood tonight, he would not be so casual. However, occasionally getting along in such a relaxed and comfortable way is also the only way to maintain loyalty and friendship. After all, women are emotional animals. Just being kind and strict is not enough to guarantee that they will not change for a long time!
After the small talk, they started to talk business. Wen Liang first told Tang Ye everything that happened tonight in detail, and then asked seriously: "Do you think it's feasible?"
Tang Ye's mind was racing and she didn't answer for a while, because she had too much information to digest. She also had to find the flaws and loopholes in the entire operation in an instant, fill in the gaps for Wen Liang, and improve the plan.
Wen Liang waited quietly. After an unknown amount of time, Tang Ye suddenly looked up and asked, "I have a question!"
"speak!"
"I remember the last time, also in this place, the boss told me personally that Gao Tianfang had come over and agreed to help us, right?"
"Yes, that's true!"
"But in tonight's plan, Gao Tianfang will become a discarded pawn. Once Liu Jiang bites him, he will become the focus of the Discipline Inspection Commission's attack, and then he reports Chen Zongzhi... In this way, let alone his career, even his personal freedom will be uncertain..."
Wen Liang's eyes narrowed slowly, and he uttered a soft "oh" and said, "You mean to say that I not only deceived him and used him, but also completely ruined his life?"
Tang Ye was startled, and noticing Wen Liang's expression, he felt a little scared, and hurriedly explained: "That's not what I meant..."
It doesn't really matter whether Tang Ye has this intention or not. What matters is that, like Gao Tianfang, she is also a member who has joined Wen Liang's army. Although one is voluntary and the other is forced, there is no fundamental difference in nature. Today, Gao Tianfang has no use value, or has been squeezed out of all his value, and then was cruelly abandoned by Wen Liang. If tomorrow, Tang Ye is also worthless, will she suffer the same fate
When a rabbit dies, the fox mourns; when the lips are gone, the teeth are in danger. Especially for someone like Tang Ye who lacks a sense of security, even if she can't think of this now, it won't be long before suspicion and fear will begin to sprout in her heart!
Wen Liang sighed and said, "Tang Ye, you will know what kind of person I am in the future. Now I need you to do one thing. Take this calligraphy to see Yin Qingquan tomorrow and ask him to criticize and correct me. It would be best if he could follow these eight words and give me another calligraphy work!"
Tang Ye felt aggrieved. She really didn't have such thoughts, but since Wen Liang didn't listen to her explanation, she silently said in her heart, you will naturally know what kind of person I am in the future. Then she calmed down and listened to his instructions carefully.
Seeing him handing him the first piece of calligraphy, Tang Ye suddenly understood Wen Liang's intention:
The way of the sage, one dragon and one snake!
This is a passage from Dongfang Shuo's "Admonitions to My Son" in the Han Dynasty. Wen Liang used this to show his goodwill to Yin Qingquan, who was an excellent calligrapher. Asking for a calligraphy is a way of lowering his profile and considering himself as a junior, and also means asking the elders to guide the younger; and the meaning of these eight words is that one should act according to the circumstances and act according to the situation, which is a metaphor for admonishing Yin Qingquan not to be rigid and support the action against Chen Zongzhi, which is exactly in line with the word "admonition" in "Admonitions to My Son"!
Things that seem simple actually contain a lot of knowledge. It is difficult to do it so effortlessly and without any mistakes unless one has been tempered in the society for many years and has a deep understanding of the world.
Tang Ye folded the words and thought to himself, if such a person is a rough man, who else in the world can be called a gentleman? (To be continued)